The Kremlin is sanctioning me – but why can’t they get my name right?

Journalists love being put on blacklists. In a profession that prides itself on holding the powerful to account, there’s no better accolade than being banned from a politician’s press conferences, put on some spin doctor’s dossier of ‘unfriendly’ hacks, or better still, declared persona non grata by some tyrant’s regime. It’s the hack’s equivalent of combat spurs, to be gathered alongside Pulitzers and war wounds.

So what greater backhanded compliment could there be than to be banned by Vladimir Putin from visiting Russia? This was the honour conferred on me last week, when myself and 14 other British journalists were put on a Kremlin sanction list for our allegedly hostile coverage of the war in Ukraine. True, we’re add-ons to a previous list of 40 that the Kremlin put out last year, but better late than never, eh? Plus it means I now join an august club that includes biggies like Clive Myrie and Orla Guerin from the BBC, and columnists such as David Aaronovitch and Con Coughlin.